That describes the ships humanitarian mission. And at 10 30, the screaming eagles in vietnam, a u. S. Army big picture film episode, documenting the 101st airbor airbornedivision. That is tonight on American History tv on cspan3. Earlier this year, nprs prairie home companion host announced that he would leave the show by 2016, handing the mic to chris theeley, he spoke at the National Press club in may. Delivering a speech, titled 15 things that need to change right away. Applause. Thank you very much, john, you were much too kind. Dont make that mistake again. You will be held to account for it honored to be here. I went to the lengths of writing out a speech. Which i never do. Reminds me too much of being in college. 15 things that need to change right away is the revised title of my speech. I came up with this because i was thinking about another speech that i gave, which also was a great honor, i was invited to give the address at princeton university, i was up in princeton earlier this week. And it all came back to me much too clearly. So, i wrote this speech, i thought i should Say Something inspiring to these young graduates, and something about, you know, life is adversity. And you know, its in struggle that we come to understand ourselves. And i thought, no, i should make it funny. And so, i worked on that. Interest and i had a story in there about the first outhouse tipping that i experienced in minnesota, that i was very much involved in as a victim. You can change the things around. So i will do that, and then i have not sure that princeton graduates would know what an out house was. So, i revised that and wound up in princeton with this speech in my pocket. And it was an academic pro session through the campus, through these, you know, silent awestruck crowds. And all of these people with gorgeous academic robes and multicolored hoods and sashes and so on. From their, you know, having gotten a ph. D. At oxford or cambridge or dubai, or the university of phoenix or wherever. And there i was. In this plane black rin back ro seemed to say vocational school. I went to the chapel and i got a huge introduction you have to cross over and climb this steep stair the way, twopart stairway up to the pulpit, which is up against a stone wall with. The applause lasted about half way up. So the first thing that the audience heard from me was heavy breathing and i launched in the speech which was funny. It was conceptually funny. And there was nothing people looked sort of studious and there was lait was laughter in the corner. It dawned on me, that my voice was bouncing around in all of this gothic grandeur and i could hear things i said 15 or 20 seconds before. So, that the people who were sitting out in front of me could not hear a single word. They could hear a few word but not whole sentences. And i caught about ten minutes out of speech by eliminating pages four and five and shot to the end and there was grateful applause and i came down and through the crowd. And to a reception. And people walked up to me and said, good job. Nothing specific. Good job, as you would say to a child who had a bowel movement. And it dawned on me, i thought at the reception and in the long painful ride back home to minnesota, that as i look back on my career in broadcasting. Nobody had ever complimented me on a specific thing. Nobody ever quoted back to me some brilliant thing i said. It was always general. We like your show. It really relaxes our children. We listen to it late at night. And it occurred to me, that perhaps i had spent 40 years in radio, as a sort of comforting bar baratone presence and nobody heard anything the in particular that i had said. Im willing to accept that. Im a christian, we want to be of service. But, today, i want to give a speech thats a little more specific. So that you will find things to disagree about. Its inspired by the feeling that i had when president obama announced in december that the administration is going to pursue an opening to cub a a. This was thrilling to me. It was like spring coming to minnesota. In mid june. It was, it was like, it was like when the plane finally begins to move, you have been sitting on the tarmac for hours, perhaps days, you have lost track. You heard one explanation after another. Weather related, air traffic roll. Flashing light in the cockpit, one pilot is depressed. I dont know what. And then finally you begin to move. And you feel incedulous, that is how i felt that when the president announced it. And things started to move forward. Somebody in washington was recognizing reality. And this to the rest of us is astonishing. I was a college kid when this blockade of cuba went in to effect. I was a poet. I was writing poems in all lower case letters and now im on Social Security. Now people address me as sir. People say, would you like to sues the stairs or would you like to take the elevator . All of this time has gone by. And to see the government move on this is astonishing, something happened. Something was done. And now, you hear about a Ferry Service that will open up. The Minnesota Orchestra has gone on tour to cuba, they were excited. They never get excited. It was astonishing. The president recognizing reality. I felt the same way when he announced that he was going to take executive action to protect five million undocumented workers from deportation. Nobody was ever talking about deporting these people, because they work. We need them, they are part of our economy. Perhaps 11 millioni undocumente workers. Just astonishing to think what it would take and nobody wants to send them away. Why not recognize them and give them stability in our country. So that, people cannot pay them . 85 an hour and have them work 85 hour works. Why not . This was astonishing, somebody in washington, recognizing reality. And so, my speech today. 15 numbered. 15 numbered things that need to happen. That need to happen tomorrow. Washington has such a reputation for inaction. And blockade and dysfunction. That some small symbolic thing. I think, would be a good first move. And i think that its time to finally name the streets downtown, that only have initial letters. Everybody else names their vetoes. And why not . I think that they should be named for fill aus fe named philosophers to give the city some class. Henry james, Martin Luther and so on. Number two, see how quickly this speech moves along here . Number two, i think we need to relax with the flag pins. Im not looking at anybody right now it just seems to me that it has become a requirement for anybody running for Public Office in america. So put a little flag pin on their lapel. Its become required that the president end every speech god bless america. So they will not question whether or not he loves his country and i think its a bad way to go. This is a free country. It really is. I mean its trying to be and parts of it certainly are, and there should not be a requirement that we wear a badge or symbol in this country. This is not germany, in the 1930s when you were required to wear an arm band and it had to, and the swastika had to be the right size. And your right arm had to be at the correct angle. Lets just not go too far. I looked at senator john mccains website and there are pictures of him there and he no plag pin in his lapel. So if he does not need to wear one, than neither do you. I think we should put out a cease and desift order on the announcements still heard in the airports, to notify authorities if a person or persons unknown to you come up and ask and you to carry something aboard the aircraft. Nobody has ever done this. Sno nobody, nobody, nobody ever will do it, its fiction. And its not harmful to anybody to have fiction. But it gives young people the sepsis that authorities are not in touch with reality. Theres enough evidence of that already without adding to that. I also think that we can continue the movement in the country to remove some of tho fortifications and the barriers and the flower pots that were put up in Public Places to defend somebody lowith a loaded truck. They are more symbolic than anything else and symbolic security is dangerous. And engineers have told us that in the case of most of these barriers, if a truckloaded these barriers would be splintered, and they would be flying missiles. Number four, i think we should stop making dimes, nickels and i just think its time. I see young people dropping small change in parking lots. I cant speak for you, but i no longer bend over to pick up a dime. I just dont go there. The fundraiser for polio used to be called the march of dimes, but dimes just dont march anymore. They just they dont. They are not worth enough. We used to say a penny for your thoughts. We dont say that anymore because it would be insulting. So i think if we leave the current supply of small change in circulation, it will gradually, you know, dissipate and disappear, and these coins will in time become more valuable. So lets just try that. Number 5. We need to change the seating arrangement in the house and the senate. Mix democrats and republicans in the chambers so that members dont have to reach across the aisle. They can just turn to the person next to them and hold out their hand, if they wish. Schoolteachers know that when clicks or gangs form in the Public School, you separate them. You dont let them all sit together. We need to do this in congress. No more red on one side, blue on the other. We should go for a checkerboard effect here. And seat them by seniority with the old ones way in the back and the young ones down front just so they get the idea. Number 6. It just makes no sense that people who work hard cannot support themselves, let alone supporting a family. This is just part of the social compact in our country that if you work hard and you keep your nose clean, youre going to be okay. But you cannot do this on the minimum wage as it exists right now unless your apartment is the backseat of your car and your car is up on blocks and you live on pet food. It just cannot be done. Los angeles did something about that this week and the rest of us should do something about it tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. The way to do it is to do it. Number 7. Here is an item for which there will be no applause in this room. Not that there was any before. Radio and Television Frequencies are a public resource just like public grazing lands out in wyoming, and they never should have been sold. They should have been leased. Maybe its too late, but when a frequency is sold one party to another, there ought to be a flip tax of 50 of appreciated value that goes into the public coffers. Radio and tv spectrums are public property, and they should be required, radio and tv stations, to provide commercial time without charge to political candidates. And its time to bring back the fairness doctrine which required stations to present a range of opinion on controversial issues. It didnt inhibit anybody, the fairness doctrine. It just meant that when top40 stations applied for renewal of license, they had to file reports from the fcc that at 4 00 a. M. On sunday they played something from the league of women voters and that is all they had to do. It was a ritual, a meaningless ritual. But it symbolized the fact that the station, the frequency, is public property and that they had public responsibility. Number 8. Our u. S. Seventh fleet has been sent off to support japan in its defense of the Senkaku Islands in the South China Sea which are also claimed by china, the Senkaku Islands, which are at last word, unpopulated, nobody lives out there, which makes all of this rather meaningless. We should not expect men or women to die defending rock outcroppings in the middle of large bodies of water. Let the Nature Conservancy go out there and defend that. Let green peace send some people in boats, but not our seventh fleet. Number 9. The drought in california is simply meant to show people that you cannot have a nice green lawn in a desert. It just doesnt work. In minnesota, we dont have giant space heaters in our backyards to make it possible for us to sit in our backyards in february and barbecue. We just dont expect that. So people in Southern California have to learn how to love gravel thats all. And they have to think twice about what they are growing for export. They are major exporters of almonds and alfalfa and avocados, all heavy wateruse crops. And those are just the ones that begin with the letter a. There are a lot more. California is exporting their precious water in the form of produce. And so the rest of us may need to accept that for certain periods of the year we will need to eat frozen strawberries and not fresh strawberries. That shouldnt be so hard. Number 10. Thanks to alaska and texas and north dakota our country is close to being energy independent. For this reason we need to take a deep breath and we need to back away from the middle east. These tribes of the middle east that european colonizers around the time of world war i packed into nation states are not happy with each other. They need to sort that out themselves. There is not much we can do to assist that. And what we have spent in iraq and afghanistan so far does not appear to have brought progress. And it could have gone a long way towards repairing our crumbling infrastructure in this country. You can call this isolationism, [ applause ] you can call it iced tea, whatever. But the president s policy of dont do stupid stuff or cause no harm is a sensible idea. Number 11. Rational conservation still has a long way to go in this country, and we need to practice more of it. In minnesota we send electricity that is generated by coal, we send it to north dakota to run their oil pumps, which create tons of national gas, which they simply flare off as a byproduct instead of using it to generate their own electricity. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The era of coalfired power plants is over. So why not bring this gently to an end . And its time to think again about nuclear power, which was cheap and efficient. There were accidents. Yes, threemile island, chernobyl, japan, but we can learn from these things. Hollywood made some very scary movies about multi meltdowns, but they also made scary movies about flesheating zombies. And we dont lock up ugly people who talk slow. Number 12. Music and theater are businesses as much as football or casino gambling, and we should use tax increment financing and enterprise zones to include the arts, which would bring cities, the inner cities, back to life and bring some soul back to the people who live in them. Numbers 13. The country is moving rapidly in the direction of accepting gay people as people, as people, period. And the government needs to come along with that. Sexual preference is a characteristic. It isnt the key to somebodys identity. People are more complicated than that. I have a friend who came out as gay 20some years ago and it was very dramatic and he carried the banner of Gay Liberation and he fought for the right of gay people to adopt children, and he and then gradually, he settled into 15 years of a close, loving relationship with another man and having won the right to adopt, he was then free to decide that he didnt want to. He was happy being an uncle and he did not want to have the burden of children. Number 14. How am i doing on time . Great. Am i okay . Do you want me to hurry up . No. Do you want me to expand . Do you want me to read from the appendix, the footnotes . Number 14. Lets give the word diversity a rest. Just a years moratorium. Just put it aside. We are diverse. We are one of the most diverse nations on gods green earth and it is one of the shining virtues of this country but the word diversity has been adopted by a bunch of bean counters and a bunch of social engineers, all of them amateurs. The league of american orchestras, for example, has set diversity as a goal. Im quoting now. The inclusion and involvement of a broad representation of our community reflecting its true makeup including race, ethnicity and cultural backgrounds, gender, sexual orientation, age, socioeconomic status, disabilities, education and religion. In other words, its not enough to play mozart beautifully. You also have to make sure your audience includes the right proportion of elderly disabled Gay Asian Men who earn less than 30,000 a year. But minority persons are not trophies. They are people. They have their own taste, their own predilections and what makes mozart worth playing, worth listening to, is what happens in peoples hearts. Subsidized concert tickets . Yes. More School Concerts . Yes, yes, yes. Counting the number of hispanics at the philharmonic concert, i just dont think so. Number 15, john, im coming towards the end. There are some big changes we cannot make, simplifying the tax code would put too many accountants out of work and it would just be so hard to retrain those people. Fixing the Health Care System as a practical nonideological matter, it cant be done until younger people get older and people my age die off, which Poor Health Care will hasten the process. Same with Climate Change and environmental disaster. We have to come closer to the cliff before we can get anything done. Electing a woman president might be nice, but she wont take office until 2017. We can however put the face of a woman on the 20 bill. And thats my last suggestion. It would be so easy to do. The department of the treasury is just over the way. As you walk by there on your way to the parking lot, just yell up to somebody, get rid of Andrew Jackson not worth remembering anyway. Harriet tubman has been proposed. I would accept that in a minute. I myself would vote for Emily Dickinson because in this way you cover women, english majors, unitarians and possibly, we think, lesbians. So were not absolutely sure. We dont have proof of that yet. All of these 15 things can be expeditiously and what a different world this would be if we would take action here. A few weeks ago the New York Times printed a big investigative story on nail salons in new york city, where they employ mostly immigrant people, mostly asian women, many of them dont speak english, probably undocumented, were not sure. They need to bribe somebody in order to get a job in many of these salons, they are paid less than the minimum wage, the salon keeps a portion of the tips they receive, and they are exposed to horrific chemicals with longrange health consequences. It was a horror that this was happening in manhattan, the most liberal city in america, was just astonishing. And it changed peoples behavior. The governor of new york two days afterward announced a crackdown, whatever that may mean, on nail salons, but it provoked every single woman in brooklyn and the Upper West Side of manhattan to ask some pointed questions the next time they walked into a nail salon. It was progress, and it was done in a matter of days. It was like a throwback to the old days of campaigning journalism when Upton Sinclair wrote a big expose of slaughter houses and brought about in a remarkable short amount of time the pure food and drug act. Lets do it again. That concludes my speech. Thank you for listening. Im going to go back to being a comforting voice on the radio and talking about a small town. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you so much. I have so many questions about that Radio Program but since were talking about Current Affairs, i just want to ask one question about Current Affairs before we leave that. We are talking so much about the 2016 race already, hillary clinton, the democratic side, Bernie Sanders and now maybe omalley gets in, hes going to announce, i guess. And on the republican side, we have more than a dozen or more. How do you see the race and how do you like hearing about it this early before 2016 election . We are waiting for donald trump. Thats all. We are waiting for donald trump to come in and peewee herman, i hope, on the republican side. And fill out that bus. Democrats are kind of lacking for drama. I just dont think a guy from vermont is going to do this. So were looking at hillary and at the same time trying not to look too hard. I like her, myself. I sat next to her on a dais at the white house Correspondents Dinner and she talked to me for about five minutes and then she had a big republican on the other side of her and she talked to him for about an hour and ten minutes. Exactly the right thing for a political woman to do. I was proud of her. She made the right choice. She detected that i was a supporter and she didnt waste time on me. Mentioned in the introduction the 41st anniversary of your Radio Program is coming up. Why do you think that its been so successful now in its fifth decade . We dont know what success is in radio. The listenership numbers are fictional. You know, we toss dice and i have no idea that there are 4 million listeners. I doubt that very much. When you subtract from that 4 million, the number of incarcerated felons whose wardens set their radio dial and then the number of people in memory units and then, you know, parents of small children who are not good sleeper, its not all that many people. You just dont think about it. I dont think about it at all. And im sorry you made me think about it. You often write your program from what i understand the day before, so very quickly. And what where do you get the inspiration for your scripts that make the stories so modern but still retain the essence of the shows folksy charm . Folksy charm . Did you use that all right. All right. Inspiration is fear of public humiliation. Is a powerful motivator. And it starts to build. Here we are. Were around noon on friday and i have to do a show on saturday, a broadcast, and you know, it starts to get on your mind right around this time. And even more so this afternoon. And then saturday morning, it gets very intense. But the beautiful thing is that i have all these other people who are much better organized than i, and they do the heavy lifting. Sarah bellum is my brilliant writer. What she has done for me over the years is just great. We miss nattily dressed. But sarah bellum is still there. Folksy charm. Come on over here, and im going to put my arms around you, son. We talked about the dwindling Attention Span in journalism for stories and so many of us are tweeting things out now. As someone known when performing for speaking slowly and deliberately and focusing as much on the artful manner of telling the story as on the content of the story, what do you think about this era that were in now of speed and small bits of information and is the art of storytelling going to endure . Spitting out small bits of information is not a good way to earn in living. Its just its not its not a good life. The American People are readers, theyre a curious people. They want to know things, and so they are waiting, the readers, especially the ones who are my age are waiting to hear from you, younger people, about the world and how you see it. Dont try to do this in 140 words. Its just not the right not the right way. I went to a speech on wednesday. Robert caro, the great biographer of Lyndon Baines johnson stood up and gave a talk offthecuff about the research that he had done on Lyndon Baines johnsons experience of the assassination in dallas on november 22nd, 1963, and the research that he did. Here was a journalist talking about his research and he held an enormous audience absolutely spell bound for about 45 minutes. No. We want to know. We want to know these things. So dont hold back. Anything that is crucial, that is important in this country, somebody will write a book about it. Why shouldnt you be the one . This questioner notes that in your book, homegrown democrat you ended by inviting readers who spot you in a cafe to approach and say hello. How many did that . Usually they said, i like your show. Good job. You know. Our kids grew up on your show. They were they were restless and they were insomniacs and we found that when we got your monologues on longplaying cds and put them next to their beds that everything changed. Thats what they say, actually. People want to know what you think of that guy, douglas mark hughes, no relation, who flew the gyro copter on the capitol lawn to protest money in politics. Protest money and politics . Where has he been the last 150 years . Its a little late for that. I think he is one more guy wanting to play with toys. I took it to mean they should demilitarize pennsylvania avenue and put it back in its original shape. I think heavy traffic would have discouraged guy from flying anything. Taxis getting out of control would have scared the bejesus out of him. No, i think they ought to take away those barriers and lets just drive by the white house and wave as we go. Did National Geographic get it right when they located lake woe begone . In addition to that, its really a diversity question. The city of st. Cloud has seen a surge of somali immigrants in recent years. Have you introducing any new characters in a prairie home companion for changing demographics of lake woe begone . We have one of the largest populations of somalis in minnesota. A large settlement in south minneapolis. They have their own shopping mall. And you walk in there and you see middleaged women in long black robes and their daughters in cutoffs and lowrider jeans and jewelry in their belly buttons. The population has not decided i think, the somali have not decided if they are here to stay. Theyve been here for decades. And but they still believe somehow that there will be a return to their disastrously wartorn country. In the meantime, theyre doing the best they can. We have many listeners among the somalis to our shows. I dont know if i should introduce a somali character and what he or she would do in lake woe begone. I could have a somali woman who would come as an intern to the lutheran church. That would be interesting. That would be interesting. A conversion and a young woman who was in training to become a pastor. Thats a possibility. But we have all these listeners because they can learn english from listening to a prairie home companion. We dont make references to politics on the show. We dont make obscure pop references at all, pop references are obscure now. And we talk slowly. And we pronounce our words and talk in whole sentences. Back to you, john. Questioner wants your opinion on liberalism. Do you see contradictions from lbj to today, proclaiming progress but also increasingly presiding over more economic inequality . Wow, thats a powerful complicated sentence. I am not sure i could diagram that sentence. Yes, of course, there have been changes since then and defeats. But we dont have people running successfully for Public Office against Social Security and medicare. And so that says a lot right there. You can always run against washington. I mean, you know, welcome to the club. But they dont get very specific about their plans for entitlement programs. They talk about them sort of vaguely. And so and so the things that lbj and his cohorts and others since have set up seem fairly durable to me. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of public radio and why . I am very optimistic about it. It has become an Important News medium, especially in rural parts of the west, the midwest. Its become very, very important as newspapering, you know, has been up and down and mostly down. Public radio stations have come forward to cover local politics with some care. We started out as sort of an alternative medium, and we now in many parts of the country, maybe most, are finding ourselves in the mainstream. Public radio does one thing that even its harshest critics and there are many, cannot deny, and that is that with very few exceptions, very few, it gives uninterrupted broadcast time to people running for Public Office in this country. It gives you, the listener, a chance to hear them at some length and not in little tiny quotes. So for that alone. Have several questions asking about your future. Now i read in the introduction that the aggressive schedule that youre keeping, so obviously no signs of slowing down, but i also understand that the prairie home companion show will keep going in your mind long after you keep going. It will keep going in my mind, you say . In my imagination . No, you know, it bumbles along from week to week. And we make as longterm plans as anybody else does in broadcasting. It also depends on stations and the extent of their interest and their ability to pay our extortionate fees and rates and so forth and send baked goods to us and other prizes. Keys to the city and so forth and honorary degrees. But no. I am sort of in a euphoric period. When you reach your early 70s, john, i hope you experience the same things. You feel this sort of bounding, bounding optimism. Either that or the medications. No, i feel just fine. And thank you for your concern. One of your greatest stories on a prairie home companion was the prophet which you told during the 1991 persian gulf war. What would a prophet tell us now . Im not in the prophesy business,and i sort of regret that monologue. Ive been trying to forget it now for years and years and years. It was one of my illadvised ventures into political commentary. I have almost erased it from my mind, john. You just brought back a little tiny bit of it. Thats prophet, right . I have no idea. I have been around and seen a lot of young people in the last month, actually. I went to my Old High School in anoka, minnesota and i went to princeton and i went to talk to some students up at harvard. I did a show at a Mennonite College in indiana, and being around people that age is just so inspiring. Theyre just so keen and theyre so bright and they have social skills that we never had back in the day. You know, we were little scared, you know, perspiring people afraid to look other people in the eye. And they are not and theyre funny and theyre engaged in dozens of things. So our replacements have arrived. They are here. We just have to come to a graceful point where we can step aside for them, as i am now stepping aside for you, john. Many questions about any writers or broadcasters or storytellers or musicians that you enjoy, any upcoming people that you follow. Which was this . Past or future . Currently. Of current. Musicians, storytellers, authors. I love to hang out with people from texas because texas is like a foreign country to me. And so whenever im with people we just lost a great texas musician, Johnny Gimbel, who was the greatest storyteller i think ive ever met. He was a barber in the army. His stories about barbering alone, let alone his stories about bob wills and Willie Nelson and lyle lovett and the rest, he was a great man. I told myself 20 years ago i was going to go down to dripping springs, texas, and i was going to sit there and get Johnny Gimbel to talk to me, and i was going to write his biography, and i didnt do it. And i will regret that for the rest of my days. Musicians are wonderful Story Tellers because they dont have much money. And they have to travel around and make their way by the grace of other people. They have to learn to live on the hospitality and the kindness of strangers, just as Tennessee Williams said. And this makes them beautiful storytellers. We really need to let them talk more on a prairie home companion. Thank you for reminding me. I will try to do that in the future. Two interesting questions from the audience and i will let you decide which one you want to answer. One question is, what is the meaning of life . The other question is, we read woe begone boy and main street in class as representative of smalltown america. How do you compare your minnesota with main street by Sinclair Lewis . What was the meaning of Sinclair Lewis life . Well, he was a lot funnier writer than people give him credit for. If you read main street i think you will see that story about carole kenecott and her discomfort in gopher prairie, minnesota. Sinclair lewis was a Great American writer. I read him in junior high school. I read doddsworth and i read babbitt. Babbitt was my favorite of all of his books. He was a satirist so they didnt care for him in minnesota. He lived uncomfortably in st. Paul for brief periods of time. He had a lot of personal troubles. But his view of smalltown america was so colored by his own experience. He grew up a doctors son in minnesota and he was ungainly. He was not physically well coordinated, and he suffered very bad facial complexion as a result of smallpox scars, and so he was an outcast. He was a terrible he suffered terribly in his childhood. I did not. I grew up among sant sanctified brethren and we felt we were the chosen people. We looked down on lutherans as being worldly and loose, and we believed that when the Second Coming occurred that jesus would bring a special car just for us. And so its an entirely different upbringing. I lived an upbringing of privilege, privilege. Before i ask the last question, i just have a little bit of housekeeping. The National Press club is the worlds leading professional organization for journalists and we fight for a free press worldwide. To learn more about us visit press. Org and to donate to nonprofit Journalism Institute visit press. Org institute. And i want to remind you about a couple upcoming programs. The cohost of nprs morning edition will talk about his book jackson land, president Andrew Jackson, cherokee chief john ross, and the Great American land grab. That is next thursday at the club. May also talk about jackson whether he will be on the 20 bill. On june 1st more than a dozen journalists who have been fined, detailed or jailed for their support of the First Amendment will appear together at a press club event on june 1st. I would like to present Garrison Keillor with our traditional National Press club mug. [ applause ] now we just have a little bit of time left. One time when you were here in the past, you sang a song. And im wondering if you would be interested in singing a song again . I will if they will. Thats the only deal. This is going to be my sixteenth point in my speech. That every morning in every Public School in america all the children should face the teacher and they should all sing this song. My country tis of thee sweet land of liberty of thee i sing land where my fathers died land of the pilgrims pride from every mountainside let freedom ring [ applause ] mr. Keillor, since you picked a short song, we actually have a couple minutes. [ laughter ] i have a better finale. One of the questioners asked why you always wear red socks. And in addition im told you always wear a red tie. So maybe you could tell us why the red socks, why the red tie. I had a pair of red socks and i put them on for a show and people commented on it. Nobody had ever commented on by wearing black or brown socks. When you are in the business of standing up in front of people, you notice these things. And im sorry, john, its not a longer answer, but thats the truth. Could we give a nice round of applause . [ applause ] we hope that you dont wait 21 more years before you come back and see us, and we thank you so much for being here today. We cant always guarantee that minnesotans will be in charge but we will always extend a warm welcome to you, no matter who is running the National Press club. Id also like to thank our National Press club staff for putting together this program. And that includes Journalism Institute and our broadcast center. And if you would like a copy of todays program or to learn more about the National Press club, go to that website, press. Org. Thank you. We are adjourned. [ applause ] this weekend on the cspan networks politics, books, and American History. On cspan saturday, live coverage of president ial candidates at the iowa state fair continues. Well hear from republican governors Chris Christie at noon and bobby jindal at 1 00 p. M. On cspan 2 saturday, book tv is live at the mississippi book festival. Coverage features former governor hailey barber and Panel Discussions on civil rights. Sunday morning at 10 00, an author and columnist shares her critical thoughts on the obama administrations relationship with millennials. Saturday afternoon at 5 00, the preservation of new yorks cultural, political, and architectural landmarks and the history of the commission created to protect them. Sunday at 4 00 on real america, three films on the pilot direct project. A program administered by the Johnson Administration after the 1968 Martin Luther king jr. Assassination and the rodney king riots. A freshman member of the 114th congress. The former navy s. E. A. L. And pac 10 Football Player talks about being raised by his grandmother and what he learned in football and iraq. Congressman ryan zinke, republican from montana. Your grandmother had a huge influence in your life, how so . She left home at 14. She grew up on a small farm in minnesota. She went to school. He was the first at the time, this was during the 30s. Not very many females went to college. So she worked as a hand maid, got a teaching certificate. And the only job she could find during the Great Depression was a oneroom schoolhouse outside of richie, montana. And shes always kind of my guide. You know, growing up she was very independent. She met my grandfather when he was working the fort peck dam. Kind of a cute story. There was a man camp there. And went by the little school. And there was two suitors. Both of them competed for my grandmother. And my grandfather chopped better wood, and they got married, and then but my grandmother was a tremendous influence in my life. A lot of aunts and uncles, correct . You know, my dad was born in glasgow, my mom was born in glendive. I was born in bozeman. So montana is an enormous large state. About the size from washington, d. C. To chicago plus two miles. And its a pretty diverse state. Although we dont have a lot of people in it, but ive always said i can speak east and west of montana, and my family stretches across the whole state. What do you remember about growing up . What were some of the experiences that shaped who you are today as a teenager . As a young boy . I grew up in a small town. It was a logging and timber town. Fairly blue collar. The zinkes are three generations of plumbers. There was never a lot of money. You know, in the house, but there was a lot of spirit. There was a lot of hard work ethic, you know. You woke up before the sun came up, and you worked hard. You know that idea of hard work, sacrifice, family, is, you know, is part of the values that stick with me hard today. And as i kind of move forward in my life, i was the kid that was at the gym at 15 minutes before the coach at 5 00 in the morning. I think i worked harder than those around me because i didnt have as much talent. Throughout my life, you know, as a s. E. A. L. I probably was never the best jumper, or explosive expert, or shooter, or sniper, but i always knew who was. And i always surrounded myself with what i think was the finest talent. And i was ive always been honored to lead men and women of unbelievable commitment, sacrifice, and arguably on some of the most complex missions the military faced. Your parents separated. How old were you . I was in third grade. Parents separated. The separation was not a friendly separation. So, my daughter, ive always made sure that maintain a very cordial, and a friendly relationship with her father